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Plain English Summary
There's a popular idea that near-death experiences follow a neat sequence of stages -- first you leave your body, then you float through a tunnel, see a bright light, and so on. Sounds tidy, right? Well, researchers put this to the test by carefully analyzing 154 written NDE accounts in French. Two coders independently cataloged which features appeared and in what order (with near-perfect agreement). The results? Feeling peaceful was the most common feature (80% of accounts), and out-of-body experiences tended to kick things off, while returning to the body usually came last. But the supposedly classic tunnel-then-light sequence? It showed up in only 22% of relevant stories. The big takeaway: every NDE is its own unique journey. There's no universal script, which is a real challenge for theories trying to pin NDEs on a single brain mechanism firing in a set order.
Research Notes
First rigorous quantitative test of Ring's (1980) 5-stage NDE model. The finding that no fixed temporal sequence exists challenges stage-progression theories and has implications for neurobiological explanations of individual NDE features. Part of the Liege Coma Science Group's systematic NDE phenomenology program.
Conducted text analysis on 154 French freely-written NDE narratives (Greyson NDE Scale >=7/32, mean score 16; mean 22 years post-experience) to determine whether NDE features appear in a fixed temporal order. Two independent coders identified and ordered 11 isolated and 5 diffuse features (kappa=0.95). Feeling of peace was most common (80%), followed by bright light (69%) and spirits/people (64%); OBE was most often the first feature (35%) and returning to body the last (36%). The most frequent 4-feature sequence (OBE-Tunnel-Light-Peace) appeared in only 22% of relevant narratives. No universal feature sequence exists; each NDE narrative is highly individual.
Links
Related Papers
Same Research Program
- Near-Death Experiences in Non-Life-Threatening Events and Coma of Different Etiologies — Charland-Verville, V (2014)
- Characteristics of Near-Death Experiences Memories as Compared to Real and Imagined Events Memories — Thonnard, Marie (2013)
- Qualitative thematic analysis of the phenomenology of near-death experiences — Cassol, Helena (2018)
- The Central Clinical Relevance of Near-Death Experiences in Acute Care Contexts — Michael, Pascal (2025)
Cites
- Consistency of Near-Death Experience Accounts over Two Decades: Are Reports Embellished over Time? — Greyson, Bruce (2007)
- Cosmological Implications of Near-Death Experiences — Greyson, Bruce (2011)
- Epistemological Implications of Near-Death Experiences and Other Non-Ordinary Mental Expressions: Moving Beyond the Concept of Altered State of Consciousness — Facco, Enrico (2015)
- Near-Death Experiences Between Science and Prejudice — Facco, Enrico (2012)
- Characteristics of Near-Death Experiences Memories as Compared to Real and Imagined Events Memories — Thonnard, Marie (2013)
- The Near-Death Experience Scale: Construction, Reliability, and Validity — Greyson, Bruce (1983)
- Incidence and Correlates of Near-Death Experiences in a Cardiac Care Unit — Greyson, Bruce (2003)
- "Reality" of near-death-experience memories: evidence from a psychodynamic and electrophysiological integrated study — Palmieri, Arianna (2014)
- Does the Arousal System Contribute to Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences? A Summary and Response — Long, Jeffrey (2007)
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📋 Cite this paper
Martial, Charlotte, Cassol, Helena, Antonopoulos, Georgios, Charlier, Thomas, Heros, Julien, Donneau, Anne-Francoise, Charland-Verville, Vanessa, Laureys, Steven (2017). Temporality of Features in Near-Death Experience Narratives. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00311
@article{martial_2017_nde_features,
title = {Temporality of Features in Near-Death Experience Narratives},
author = {Martial, Charlotte and Cassol, Helena and Antonopoulos, Georgios and Charlier, Thomas and Heros, Julien and Donneau, Anne-Francoise and Charland-Verville, Vanessa and Laureys, Steven},
year = {2017},
journal = {Frontiers in Human Neuroscience},
doi = {10.3389/fnhum.2017.00311},
}